Final Destination - Salzburg Austria

If you have not been checking in often this is part 3 of our multi-destination vacation. Check out parts 1 and 2 if you have seen them yet.

So picking up the story after leaving Challangeland and Budapest it was dark and late before we got in to Salzburg. Our hotel turned out to be difficult to find. The GPS was taking us to closed roads and other roads that were under construction. I tried coming from the other side a different way with no luck. All of the roads in this area were one way and there was a river going through town that only had a couple of bridge crossings for cars. We drove around and around for a while trying to get close to the hotel. Finally I parked on the curb of a busy street and walked the rest of the way to get checked in. It turns out that the hotel is in a very quaint area full of little shops and bakeries, very nice. The hotel lady told me where to park which was in the Maribel Palace parking garage about 800 meters from the hotel. At this point I did not care. We drove right to it, parked, and hoofed it the rest of the way with luggage in hand. The room was nice as the hotel was completely refurbished only two years ago.

Cindy got her computer fired up so we could look at where we were supposed to be bright and early the next morning for our 13 hour guided tour of The Eagle's Nest, Berchtesgaden, and King's Lake. I very quickly realized that I had an email from the tour place informing us that the tour had been cancelled. The Eagle's Nest was going to be closed since they received some snow up on the mountain. This snowballed into a complete change in our itinerary for this trip. We decided to move our Sound of Music tour from Friday afternoon to Thursday morning. The tour company obliged the change in schedule. So the next morning we got ready and walked to our tour bus starting point close to the parking garage. When David was here a few weeks prior with his school trip he told us he ate about 5-6 apples per day, they were sooooo good. There was a huge farmer's market set up right in the tour bus area so we had time to stop and get some apples. Cindy and I never got one so the verdict is still to come once we find some more Austrian Apples. David and Katherine seemed to like the four that we did buy.

So, the Sound of Music. I am not the fan that wanted to go on this tour but I was into it enough to want to tag along and see the sites. To be honest I don't think I have ever sat through the whole movie, just seen bits and pieces. David has been forced to watch it as school since they took the trip to Salzburg, where it was filmed. At school his class has watched it over time in short intervals. He does not like that they break out into song every five minutes. Cindy is the big fan and was really wanting to do this tour even if she had to go alone at a future date. The family was up for it, so off we went.

The tour bus drove around in the city for a while while the guide got us some of the information we would need for the day. Above is the fortress on top of the hill that you can see all around Salzburg. David got to tour this when he was here. 

We walked around a good portion of this little lake. Many of the scenes filmed inside the house were from this white house on the right. There was a whole 20 minute theory that the guide gave as to why the facade of this house was not used in the movie. It had to do with political reasons related to who owned the home at the time and the film dealing with the touchy topic of the Nazi party. Cindy can fill in the details for anyone interested. There were a couple of swans on the lake, this one came right up to the group and started showing off. The tour guide acted as if this swan did this every day.

This house we just drove by on the way to another stop. I guess it is the actual facade that you see in the movie, they just didn't use it for the indoor shots. She described how complicated this must have been since some of the scenes show two parties talking to each other with the backdrop being the lake from the white house and the other person is standing in front of the yellow house. Also, another scene where Julie Andrews is soaking wet from being in the lake but she is standing in front of the yellow house that is not anywhere close to water. It was pretty interesting. 

This is the famous gazebo used in the film. It had been moved to a few different locations over the years due to fans jumping fences and other intrusive measures to get close to it. Now it is located on the grounds of the Hellbrunn Palace a few kilometers outside of the city. The palace has nothing to do with the movie, it was just a touristy place that had room to house the gazebo too. The tour guide said they locked it now since people would jump from bench to bench like Julie Andrews did and hurt themselves and/or fall through the glass. The last one was an 84 year old American lady that sewed the city for allowing her access to it where she could get hurt. 

After the Gazebo stop we headed east towards the lake district. On this trip we drove by two beautiful lake areas and stopped at Lake Mondsee near the town of Mondsee. We then drove in to town and parked the bus for a stroll through town to the church where the where Maria's wedding was filmed. In the movie it took place in Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg. We had some time to walk around the town and check out the restaurants and gift shops.  

 

That was about it for the tour. We did drive by a few other locations but did not have time to snap pictures as were were being told about it as we drove by. The tour guide was good and engaging. During the long drive out to the lake district she told us the true life story of Maria Von Trapp based on the book about herself. It is a quite different story than the movie but was also very interesting. The Nazi role was not like Hollywood portrayed in the movie, go figure.

It was now mid-afternoon after the tour. We were right next to the Mirabell palace and gardens so we took a walk through that area. I am not sure why we did not get many pictures other than we were worn out already. We came into the gardens on one of the side yards that was all roses. They still had thousands of roses blooming at a time of the year when the trees had lost most of their leaves. We then saw the large garden area that David had toured some weeks ago.

At this point we headed back to the hotel. I needed to get off of my feet for a while. After the past few days and the late drive my back started bothering me for the first time in a long time. Cindy and Katherine walked around the hotel area looking shopping for a while. Cindy found a few things and Katherine got a new winter hat and scarf. Later that evening we went to dinner at a restaurant next to the hotel. We had pizza and spaghetti which is about a once a week menu for us these days. The pizza was huge resulting in enough leftovers to feed all of us one more time.

Day 2:
Our revised schedule allowed us to check out of the hotel Friday morning, pack up, and head south to the Berchtesgaden and King's lake area that was going to be part of our tour. The Eagle's Nest was now closed for the season since this day was now November 1st. We will have to do that sometime next year. It is only about an hour and a half away from our home after all.

It was about 30km to get to Königsee, King's Lake. The tour would have only taken us to the lake to see it. We would not have been able to take the ferry ride to St, Bartholomew's Church on the other end of the lake. This is a place that I have wanted to get to since I first saw it in our little castle guide.

We drove right through Berchtesgaden on the way to the lake. It is a town worth exploring more, but the heavy fog that morning took away all of the scenery that the town is known for. When we got to the lake the fog was still heavy but we trusted that by the time we got off of the boat it would be fine. Cindy took some pretty cool pictures as the fog started to burn off. There was a guy on the boat speaking into a microphone for almost the whole ride. He was speaking only in German and we got nothing out of it. At different times everyone around us would start laughing, so I guess he was pretty entertaining. The really cool thing about the ferry ride was when the boat engines were turned off about halfway to the church. We sat in silence for a minute, then the guy started playing a bugle. He was playing short musical phrases and we would hear the perfect echo right after each phrase. He did this for several minutes. The utter silence around us with just the bugle was something that I enjoyed. The boat started back up again and we were on our way.

After getting off of the boat we took the above panorama shots. There is nothing here except for the old church and a couple of other structures, and the only way to get here is via the ferry. David and Katherine are on the seesaw in the bottom right of the above picture.  

Here is the church as it stands today. The current design has existed since 1697. The area was used as a hunting lodge for the Bavarian Kings, which is why the lake got the name.

We probably spent about an hour just looking around at all of the beautiful scenery.

This pic was taken on the way back as we got close to the end.

These last few pics are of the little town. It was a very clean and cool shopping, eating, and hotel area leading up to the lake. I think Cindy and I would enjoy coming here sometime sans kids to just relax.

After getting back to the car we headed home. It was the end of a long busy vacation and we really did not have it in us to stop in Berchtesgaden to explore. We will definitely be back since it is so close. The roads were pretty calm on the way back so we got to take advantage of the no speed limit thing. I think we made it home in about 90 minutes. It was nice to be back on Friday evening where we could take Saturday and Sunday to rest. I think the kids were glad to be back home since they spent a lot of time playing so well together over the weekend. 

This was an awesome trip with some great family memories.